The Beach
by Marsuvees
Summary: Where It Started, Where it Grew, and Where it Bloomed. SoKai. For Sunflowerb's "Us" Contest.


_Heyo, my friends. Aside from not owning Kingdom Hearts, the only other thing you need to know here is that this fic is for Sunflowerb's "Us" Contest._

_Let's see how this goes, shall we?_

* * *

_Love is like playing the piano. First you must learn to play by the rules, then you must forget the rules and play from your heart.  
__~Unknown_

* * *

Looking back, the boy realizes he didn't know what he was getting into.

Looking back, the girl realizes she had no choice in what she was getting into, someone else made that one for her.

* * *

It started with a single night. A night of a meteor shower. The boy, very young at the time, had wanted to go see the celestial sight, but his best, and only at the time, friend had said something akin to "Seen one shower, seen them all"

Unfazed by the disinterest of his friend, the boy went out to the Island to watch for himself.

As he watched the meteors streak from space and crash into distant waters, he noticed a form wash up on the shore before him. It was a girl. The girl.

She wore a simple white and pink sundress than clung, soaked, to her small, pale body. Dark, auburn red hair lay matted about her face. The boy guessed that she was about his age. When he reached her, she asked him if he would be her friend, before she lapsed into unconsciousness.

And there, on the beach beneath a falling sky, something was born.

* * *

Years passed and the boy, the girl, and the other boy grew close. An inseparable trio. Two troublemakers, one peacemaker. Two warriors and one princess. One earth, One sky, One ocean.

They lived their lives in bliss and relative happiness until the appointed day came and darkness arrived to sweep their world into it's unquenchable hunger. The trio was shattered. One went with the darkness, one was taken by the darkness, and the other followed after the two.

The boy traveled long and hard in pursuit of his lost friends. He traveled through space and stars. Across deserts and through jungles. He searched the ocean. He searched the land. He searched the sky.

And the sky was where he found them.

In a Castle. A Castle in the sky.

The boy fought the other boy over the girl. Both trying to save her in their own ways. The boy's heart triumphed and the other boy was left in shame. In his shame, he allowed the darkness to take his heart completely and he disappeared.

At the highest reaches of the castle, the Grand Hall that just caressed the clouds, the boy found the girl before the Dark Depths.

But she was empty. Her heart was gone.

And then the boy learned. He learned what the extra warmth in his heart had been. The strength at his back. It had been her. Her Heart. Her heart resting peacefully inside him.

Knowing what had to be done, he took up the dark blade that had belonged to their friend and drove it through his own heart. Trading his, for hers. She awoke, but he fell into darkness.

The girl could not stand for that.

She reached into the darkness and found the boy. She pulled back the strands that had entangled his heart and brought him back to the light. She gave him a charm. An Oathkeeper. A sign for him to return to her one day, after he had saved the world and found their lost friend.

As the boy disappeared from view, separated by the reforming worlds, they promised to find each other again. And as her world's broken fragments came back together around her, she could have sworn she heard an "I love you." born across the wind.

But, then again, perhaps it had been just her.

* * *

And so she waited. Even when memories faded and names were forgotten the girl waited, not knowing for what. She stood on the shore of that beach, knowing that she had made a promise. Knowing that someone, somehow, was going to return and everything would be wonderful again. Until that time came, the girl drew her feelings onto a wall of art. A picture that showed her love for the boy.

When Number VIII came for her, she was all but ready to follow. A year of waiting had passed and she was ready to find her friends. Only when she felt the nothingness from the red-haired man did she falter and run the other way. The other way which led her through winding corridors to her friends. To the two boys.

Together, they fought through another Castle. A Castle of Nothingness, beneath a pale moon of Hearts. Together, they stopped the plans of a madman and saved the world. But just when victory seemed won, and all things were to be right again, the girl found the dark hand of a dying Superior had separated her from her friends once more.

And so she sat on the beach, awaiting their return.

And return they did, having vanquished the monster once and for all.

No feeling could be compared to when she saw her two friends appear from the water before her. Nothing could compare to the euphoria she felt as she watched the boy stumble wildly, desperately, toward her. No words could capture the love she felt when he place his calloused hand in hers, returning to her the Oathkeeper charm.

The girl could only smile.

It hurt too much not to.

He was home.

* * *

Time passed and the three regained some of their former lives. The boy and the girl had been out on the island, reminiscing, when they found a drawing in a cave. A drawing the two had made many years before. A drawing that had been added to firstly by the boy, and secondly by the girl. A drawing that declared the feelings that had always lain beneath the surface. Together they discovered it. The little things that had always been. The little things which had been born on that night of the meteor shower and cultivated by years of friendship, now grown to full bloom. To full, beautiful, lovely bloom.

And after all these things, they laughed at the absurdity. At the silly, joy-filled discovery of love. They giggled and tickled and rolled in the sand, until they fell to a stop in each others arms. There, under the moonlight.

Still there on that beach.

-------------------

Looking back, Sora realizes he didn't know what he was getting into, but he also realizes that he's glad he didn't.

Looking back, Kairi realizes she had no choice in what she was getting into, someone else made that one for her, but she loved it anyways.

_**Fin.**_

* * *

_Have a wonderful day,  
__~Mars_

(_The two typos_ _kindly pointed out by Sunflowerb have been corrected)_


End file.
